Today 88 per cent of UK universities pay a living wage, marking a significant increase from 2022 when I first published an article on Wonkhe that suggested that several universities were engaged in “civic washing” – claiming civic credentials without the concrete action to back up their claims.
My argument then was that a significant proportion of universities had made public commitments to be “civic” but were not paying the living wage. How, I often asked myself, can you claim to be civic and not treat your lowest paid, and often local, staff with the dignity of a living wage?
The Living Wage Foundation calculates the living wage to be £12.60 (£13.85 in London) according to the cost of living, based on a basket of household goods and services. This is above the statutory minimum wage, which the government brands as the “national living wage.” Employers – including universities – have used the language of the “voluntary living wage” (VLW) where they claim to pay the level determined by the Living Wage Foundation but are not accredited in doing so. This contrasts with the “real living wage” (RLW) which is when an employer is accredited by the Living Wage Foundation as paying the living wage.
To be accredited with the Living Wage Foundation an employer must pay all directly employed staff the living wage and have an agreed plan in place for third party contracted staff such as for outsourced catering, cleaning and security. The requirement placed on subcontracted staff is one of the reasons that universities and other employers pay the VLW as opposed to the RLW.
Real progress
As reported in a series of Wonkhe articles (here and here), over the past four years there has been an increase in the number of universities paying the real and voluntary living wage. In the context of the acute financial crisis impacting many universities this is a massive achievement that should be celebrated. Indeed, I am aware of only one university that has de-credited from the Living Wage Foundation over the past few years.
In 2019 (when I first looked into the living wage issue) only 38 of Universities UK members were accredited with the LWF. Today that has increased to 80 with four accrediting in 2024. However, this does not take into account the universities that pay the VLW. The only way to determine this is to check institutional websites and where no information is available to follow up with a freedom of information request. In 2024, we contacted 61 universities and determined that 39 were paying a voluntary living wage.
This year I decided to update this analysis by focusing on the 22 universities that confirmed they did not pay the RLW or VLW. Two of these were private providers that did not respond to a FOI last year, so I excluded them. The remaining 20 did respond, of which 12 unambiguously acknowledged that they did not pay the living wage, three said they were considering it but currently do not pay the VLW, 2 said no, but added that their pay scales are above the living wage and thus were included in the analysis and three said that they now pay the VLW.
This means that out of 140 universities in my sample, 123 now pay the real or voluntary living wage (88 per cent), up from 82 per cent last year. Whilst this is undoubtedly cause for celebration, it is important to note that the VLW does not require a commitment for subcontractors to be paid a living wage.
As some of you know, I am off to pastures new and thus this will be the last time I update the analysis. However, I am delighted that Citizens UK’s community of practice on higher education has agreed to take on the exercise and I have shared with them all the data from previous years. Perhaps when I return to the UK the university sector will have set a precedent by being wholly accredited with the Living Wage Foundation.
